Page 211 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
Iiro never would have attacked if he hadn’t wanted us dead, and Korhonan would not have risked sending his man into my camp to tell me something I already knew. He hadn’t said,Iiro wants you dead, though.
He wants revenge.
Furious clouds of red edged out my vision. That damned well made two of us, especially when I finally pried out of the officer the things Iiro had ordered done to the innocent villagers along the border, just to make an example of them. Samu would have been a mercy compared to what the pretend-king had done.
And now he wanted to get his hands on my wife.
My heart beat an unsteady staccato in my ears, my breaths coming too fast in my chest. The feeling was so foreign that it took me entirely too long to identify it.
Panic.
Because if Wolf had betrayed us, then Bear would fall. Even the fortified estate would not hold up against that kind of assault.
And Iiro wanted my wife—my endlessly brave and infinitely reckless lemmikki, who would die before backing down from his threat, who would meet him with her head held high, stare him down the same way she had Ava and the whip that nearly killed her.
Even when we were outnumbered and outmaneuvered, she would face him down with all the fierceness she possessed. And just like I had been in that throne room, I would be powerless to stop him from exacting every inch of the vengeance he wanted so badly on her perfect body.
Hell, knowing him, he would make me watch as she screamed. He was already volatile where she was concerned, already crueler than he ever let people see, and his failed plan at the Obsidian Palace had pushed him too far.
Far enough that his eternally loyal brother had betrayed him for the sake of warning us. What had he done to make Korhonan scared enough for Rowan to reach out to me?
I blinked, and all I could see was snow stained crimson with blood. Pouring from the gashes on her back. The slice wound on her neck. All the times I hadn’t been fast enough to save her, and this time – this time, there wasn’t even a chance.
No.
Maybe I would die and maybe my clan would fall with me, but he could not have her. Not my lemmikki.
Not while there was still breath in my body to keep her safe.
“I assume you’re returning to him, to report?” I asked the messenger, who had been standing silently to allow me to process his news.
He nodded, brow furrowed.
My brain worked furiously, weighing the very few options I had before landing on the only possible choice. The only way to keep her from paying the price of my mistakes.
I looked at the Elk soldier, reluctantly deciding to trust a man I had done nothing but despise for the better part of a decade.
“Then I need you to give him a message as well.”
CHAPTER NINETY
Rowan was up to her elbows in blood when I found her.
It was a familiar sight these days, but too close to all the images my mind had conjured since I read Korhonan’s note. I must not have schooled my features as well as I meant to, because my wife went still when she caught sight of me. She finished with her ministrations and hastily wiped her hands before crossing the tent to me.
“What is it?”
Iiro wants to torture you. My estate is going to fall. All I’ve done for my clan as their Duke is get them slaughtered in far greater numbers than my father managed on his most unhinged day.
And I’m about to lose the only person who could make that bearable.
Not that it would matter for long. I might die fighting for my people, but I would die all the same.
“Nils has betrayed us.” I gave her as much of the truth as I could. “He’s marching on the estate.”
The blood drained from her face, her lips parting in a surprised O. But it didn’t take long for her to square her shoulders, just as I knew she would.
“So we go to head him off,” she reasoned. “Join the soldiers you already have stationed there.”